


ghosts on paper, ghosts in ink

by olympicmaelstrom



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Post-Canon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Sorry Jehan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:47:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olympicmaelstrom/pseuds/olympicmaelstrom
Summary: "Enjolras had been right to say that ideas can never perish. Jehan keeps them alive in his remembrance, in the words he writes on this day. He never asked to be the keeper of the flame, but that is his task now, and he will bear it with the strength of Atlas if that is what it takes."
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	ghosts on paper, ghosts in ink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Andretheshorty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andretheshorty/gifts).



> I'm a bit late for Barricade Day but here y'all go, just in time for the barricade's fall lol

June 21, 1833. One year. One year since Jehan’s release from capture, paid for handsomely by a man who calls himself M. Fauchelevant. One year and sixteen days since the brutal fall of the barricades. 

  


Jehan sits down to write, trembling. He has not written in a year. He had tried, certainly. He had never succeeded. But now he felt compelled to pay homage to his fallen friends. It would not be poetry. It would be more like epitaphs that belonged on the graves that Jehan had found to be unmarked. His friends deserve better. He would try his best to do them justice. He would never be able to do them justice. 

  


_Bahorel died as he lived: in an endless, fast-paced fight against injustice._

  


The only death Jehan saw in person. Brave Bahorel, slain by the national guard because he himself slayed a guardsman. It had happened far too quickly: one moment, his friend was standing, fighting, and the next his blood was staining the pavement and his eyes were empty. Jehan, until that moment, had pictured death as something dramatic and melancholy and poetic, the likes of Homer or Shakespeare. Bahorel’s death was messy and fast and real and nothing like an epic tragedy of the stage. 

  


_Éponine died as she lived: in love she could not quite touch._

  


Jehan often hears Marius speak of the girl Éponine. He does not speak of her death. He does not have to. Jehan, in his quiet, perceptive way, understands. He understands more than anyone what it means for someone to die mere inches from where you stand. And he understands why someone might choose to.

  


_Gavroche died as he lived: in joy._

  


This, Jehan can only guess at. It is a good guess, he thinks. He is almost certain he never saw the gamin without a smile. No one speaks of Gavroche. No one is quite ready. He doesn’t think anyone will ever be quite ready. And even if they were, what would they say? 

  


_Bossuet died as he lived: in such a way that it did not matter how successful his endeavor was._

  


_Feuilly died as he lived: in service of the people he so loved._

  


_Courfeyrac died as he lived: in camaraderie, fighting with his brothers-in-arms._

  


_Combeferre died as he lived: in a display of humanity._

  


_Joly died as he lived: in high spirits._

  


More deaths Jehan did not witness. He does not know if that is for better or for worse. But he knows his friends, and he will immortalize them as they would have wished to die. He will immortalize his ghosts in paper and in ink and pray that someone, centuries from now, will remember them. And perhaps, he thinks selfishly, remember the poet who writes of them now. 

  


_Grantaire died as he lived: in awe of Enjolras._

  


Grantaire always thought he was being clever, being secretive. But Jehan Prouvaire is a keeper of secrets among his friends, and if Grantaire lacked one thing, it was a filter. He did not lack belief, as he so often claimed. Jehan does not know how Grantaire died, not precisely, but what does it matter? There was only one reason he had fought at the barricades. 

  


_Enjolras died as he lived: in a burst of light radiant and luminous enough to reach all France._

  


This is a hope, a buried hope that Jehan cannot let go of. That the future will come. The future must come. Enjolras needed it to come, and they’d all had faith in him. Jehan still has faith in Enjolras and what he stood for, dead or no. Enjolras had been right to say that ideas can never perish. Jehan keeps them alive in his remembrance, in the words he writes on this day. He never asked to be the keeper of the flame, but that is his task now, and he will bear it with the strength of Atlas if that is what it takes. 

  


He is running out of epitaphs. So much the better, he supposes. He has no words left, except maybe a few for himself. 

  


_Jehan_ , he writes, _is dying, not quite as he lived: too slowly, with too much time to take in a world he does not know if he wants to see anymore._

  


He hopes it is not true. He knows it is.


End file.
